Spring 2022 Student Teaching

Students created collages inspired by a thematic topic in the play, She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen. The final pieces centered around grief, loss, sisters, guilt, youth, fantasy, identity, sexuality, and gender. Students utilized mixed media to craft their collage, resulting in various digital and analog art pieces.

My student teaching took place in a public school, teaching students in grade 12. The ELA classroom consisted of two teachers. The classroom is located on the third floor of the building. The classroom is accessible via the stairs or elevator.

The classroom consists of various desks that are positioned in small groups. Students are not assigned specific seats but do often work in assigned small groups. The walls hold multiple bookshelves, fully stocked with novels pertaining to the students’ interests. Student work is displayed on the remaining walls. The classroom has a Promethean Smart Board at the front of the room that is used for daily slideshow presentations, media viewing purposes, and text. The speaker is also attached to the Promethean that allows for volume of any viewing materials.

This school uses a Mastery-Based learning system, where students are assessed by the school’s ten shared outcomes. These outcomes are connected to the state standards for each course. When assessed, students are given one of three abbreviations that indicate if they are still working towards meeting the outcome, have met the outcome, or have exceeded in reaching the outcome.

The curriculum for ELA 12 is flexible, depending on the knowledge students enter the space with, and the pace at which topics are covered. Prior to the unit this lesson was taught in, students worked through units in College essay writing, read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and engaged in small book clubs with previously student-selected texts. There are 30 students in the class. All of the students are in the 12th grade. The class meets for 45 minutes per day, five days per week.

E. Jancsy Student Teaching ELA Lesson Plans.pdf

Arc of Learning Lesson Plans

E. Jancsy Student Teaching Reading + Notes Example.pdf

Reading + Notes Graphic Organizer



The series of lesson plans to the left of the screen is a week's worth of content taught during the unit on She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen. This play, published in 2011, tells the story of Agnes Evans, a young person who is grappling with the tragic and sudden loss of her sister, Tilly, and her two parents. During her grieving process, Agnes decides to play Dungeons and Dragons, in an attempt to remain connected to her deceased sister, who loved the game. This play centers the thematic topics of grief, sexuality, gender, and family. Students read the entire play during class, while simultaneously recording notes regarding their thoughts on the content in the scenes, as well as the theme and messages conveyed in the piece. Students worked with comprehensive structures such as a Note Taking Graphic Organizer (to the left) and Role on the Wall worksheet (above).

Student Examples of the Collage Project

During this unit, students had the opportunity to engage with the play, utilizing visual arts and creative writing, in two major projects. The first project, placed at the half-way point of the unit, required students to create a collage in response to one thematic topic present in the play. The collage had to communicate the student’s understanding of the topic’s purpose in the play, the characters that are confronted with the topic, and the student's own reflections on the topic. The final project, following the last reading of the play, encouraged students to create their own Dungeons and Dragons adventure in a slideshow presentation. Students were given a Project Planning Template that allowed them to map out their creative story, utilizing guiding questions to identify the characters in their story, the “quest” or journey that the characters go on, the “battle” or climax of the story, and the resolution of the story. Once the template was completed, students were then able to translate their thoughts onto a visually engaging slideshow presentation that served as the storybook of their adventure.